This Is The World We Live In
by Majorkami
Summary: Set shortly after episode 100, if Lee had not survived the operation. Gai made a promise to follow his student to the death. Will he keep it? Will anyone care? No pairings, but could be called a friendship fic.


Author's note: First off, the all-important disclaimer. I do not own Naruto

This is my debut in the Naruto fandom. I got the title for this when I was re-watching episode 100 and Lee asked, "Why am I the only one that has to go through this?" For the trivia-minded, it's a song reference. Anywho, let's get on with it.

* * *

The sky had been blood red when he was told. Tsunade had tried to make him sit down for the news, had tried to break it gently to him, but he wouldn't leave the hall outside the operating room.

"We ran into some unexpected complications during the operation-" she started, but he would hear none of it.

"Tell me about them after I see Lee-kun."

Tsunade stepped between him and the operating room door.

"You must listen to me first."

"Let me in there NOW or I will not be responsible for the damage done by my youthful rage while making a way to Lee-kun's bedside!"

"Lee is dead, Gai." Tsudane replied, her voice reflecting all the weariness of a bitterly fought battle lost. Maitou Gai shook his head emphatically in response.

"No, that is not possible! Lee!"

Gai pushed past Tsunade and into the operating room. His student was occupying the lone table in the centre of the room, a sheet pulled up to his neck, eyes closed. He was more still than Gai could ever recall seeing him.

"Lee-kun!"

He crossed the short distance to the operating table.

"Lee-kun, wake up!"

Gai had tried to yell, but the words came out as a plea. He reached out to touch Lee's face.

"This is no time to sleep-"

He froze the moment his fingers grazed Lee's cheek. The boy was cold.

"His heart stopped halfway through the operation," Tsunade said from behind him, having followed him silently inside. She moved behind Gai, and put a hand on the jounin's shoulder. It was clenched harder than steel.

"I tried everything I could to save him. Everything I know. His body just couldn't take the strain from the amount of Chakra the procedure needed."

Gai cupped his palm against the side of his student's face, wanting to yell until Lee woke, or turn and demand that Tsunade release this genjutsu and take him to where Lee really was, but his throat seemed to have squeezed shut. All he managed was a single word.

"Lee. . ."

"He fought hard to survive. There was even a point after his heart stopped that it came back, and he tried to breathe. But he was gone again before I could stabilize his condition."

_He fought hard against Gaara too,_ Gai recalled with a twinge of pride, watching again in his mind how his favourite student had moved faster than the sand-nin's automatic defence, drawing blood from an opponent who had strolled untouched through the Forbidden Forest as though crossing a playground. But the pride faded to grief as he remembered the end of that fight, the jarring crack of breaking bone as Gaara's sand crushed Lee's arm and leg. _Why didn't I intervene sooner? I could have saved him from this!_

Another memory tugged at his mind. _Go through the operation, Lee._ His own words, spoken at almost the last time he had seen his student alive.

_I allowed him to be so badly hurt and then I drove him to his death. This is my fault._

"I'm sorry." Tsunade said.

"For what?" Gai replied, tears streaming down his face, "This is not your doing."

He pulled himself from Tsunade's grasp and fled the room.

_No, Lee's death is not your doing, _Gai thought as he ran from the hospital into the russet dusk, _It's mine.

* * *

_

Tsunade slowly let her hand drop, well after Gai had run from the room.

"But it is," she murmured, studying her dead patient's immobile features. Some of Gai's tears had landed on the boy's face, making it look as though Lee were crying. She hated losing a patient, any patient, let alone one who had been so young and full of determination.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do better, Lee-kun." She said, wiping the teardrops from his cheek. Then she pulled the sheet up over his head and left, leaving the still, shrouded body of the young ninja to the equally still operating room.

* * *

It was getting to dark to read outdoors. Kakashi was walking home, his nose stuck in the latest volume of 'Makeout Paradise', when he was bowled into by a person in a hurry. He sidestepped just in time to avoid being knocked over completely and caught the green blur that had run into him by the shoulders before he fell too far. It was Gai. Kakashi was about to return to his book when he noticed that Gai's eyes were red-rimmed.

"Ah, my eternal rival," the green-clad ninja said in a shaky voice, "We have fallen upon evil days indeed, where the spring of youth is snatched away by winter's frost. . . I-I have lost my nindo, and-"

The man's voice was near breaking.

_Lee is dead_ Kakashi thought, now fully focused on the jounin before him. Nothing else could have made Gai this distraught.

"-and I regret to tell you that I am no longer fit to be your rival," Gai finished, "Our rivalry is at an end."

He stopped for a second to control the tremor in his voice, then graced Kakashi with a ghost of a smile that bore no resemblance to his normal 'nice guy' pose.

"Farewell, Kakashi-san. You have been a better rival than I could have asked for."

He leapt away into the gathering darkness before Kakashi could even think of a response.

_Farewell. . . wait!_ Kakashi took off full-tilt after Gai. _Dammit he's fast.

* * *

_

Gai sprinted blindly through the village, sometimes switching to the rooftops to avoid people in the streets. He did not know where he was going or when he would get there, but he knew he would not see the sun rise again.

_There is no light left for me now. I have no way. My nindo is gone._

He felt a hollow pain in his chest, and came to a stop. He was in the same field where he had trained Lee for so many days. As he stopped his grief stole the strength from him, and he crumpled to his knees.

_You're a baka who cannot live on without his nindo. You and I are bakas like that._

His words from a scant few days ago rang in his ears, from when he had convinced Lee to undergo surgery.

_Ever since I met you, my nindo has been to turn you into an excellent ninja._

_And I've failed you, Lee. I sent you to your death,_ Gai thought bitterly. His had subconsciously went to his equipment as he heard more of his own words in his head.

_If by a one-in-a-million- no, one-in-a-trillion chance the operation fails, I'll die with you._

He pulled out a kunai, the ache in his chest getting worse as those last words reverberated in his mind.

_I'll die with you._

He took the kunai in both hands and aimed it at his chest, at the ache there, which he knew was his heart.

_I'll die with you._

"And I will, Lee-kun," he whispered to the dark, and rammed the kunai home. Before it got here, Gai was struck by a flying blur.

Kakashi knocked the other jounin to the ground a mere second before the latter drove the kunai into his own chest and pinned him, flat on his back, arms above his head. The kunai was still clenched in one hand, stained with blood from a shallow rip across Gai's chest.

"What are you doing! Let me go!" Gai roared. Kakashi's response was simple.

"Why?"

"I made a promise and I will keep it! I have lost my nindo, don't you understand! If you are a man at all you will let me go!"

Gai struggled as he spoke, but he was unable to break Kakashi's hold on his wrists. Soon the shouts transformed into sobs.

"I promised him, and I sent him to his death. I promised-"

Gai stopped struggling, sobbing incoherently. He still had the kunai in his hand, so Kakashi kept him pinned, watching impassively with his one visible eye as Gai expelled his grief in hiccupping sobs. It was well into the night before Gai exhausted himself weeping and went completely limp in Kakashi's grasp. Except for the hand holding the kunai.

"What did you promise Lee?" Kakashi asked quietly, hoping to find a way to draw this encounter to a close.

"That I would turn him into an excellent ninja," Gai replied in a ragged murmur, having worn his throat raw, "It was my nindo. His was to become an excellent ninja using taijutsu skills alone, and mine was to train him with everything I had to turn him into an excellent ninja."

"He was an excellent ninja. You succeeded."

"No, I failed him. I told him to go through the operation even though there was only a 50 percent chance of him surviving. I got him killed. And I promised him that I'd die with him if he didn't live through the operation."

He looked up at the copy-ninja, his rage long spent, leaving only a worn sadness in its place.

"Let me go. Please. . . I can't live without my nindo."

Kakashi eyed him critically.

"I told you, you succeeded. I have never seen a genin able to move so fast. As to the operation, did he argue with you?"

"No, he seemed happy, after the choice was made. He seemed so determined. . ."

"He did it to pursue his nindo, then?"

"He said he would pursue his nindo even if it killed him-"

"Then he went willingly. You did not get him killed, it was his choice."

"But I-"

"No buts. You did not contribute to his death, and you did not fail him."

"I still promised him, Kakashi-san. I promised to die with him if the operation failed. And I do not break my promises."

Kakashi sighed. There would be no easy way out of this.

"If you had died, and Lee were here, would you want him to take his own life?"

"In the springtime of his youth! Never! He had too much ahead of him to throw away like that!"

"How well did you know him?"

"I know-knew-everything about him."

"Would he hold you to a promise to abandon your other students and your village?"

"He would never make me do such a thing-" Gai started, but Kakashi cut him off.

"Then he would not hold you to this promise. If you kill yourself here, you'll be abandoning Konoha and your team. Your other students have lost a team-mate today; would Lee-kun also deprive them of their sensei?"

Gai's eyes went wide as he met Kakashi's unwavering gaze. In his grief, he had forgotten that he still had a responsibility to Tenten and Neji.

_Lee cared deeply for his team-mates- even Neji, despite the amount they fought. He would not want me to leave them now anymore than he himself would abandon them._

The hand clenching the kunai relaxed.

"No. . . he would not. He would not want me to do this."

Kakashi released his hold on one of Gai's wrists to carefully take the kunai from his grasp.

"Then why are you here?"

Gai did nothing to resist as Kakashi took the kunai and flicked it at a tree.

"I. . . don't know."

Finally.

"If I release you," Kakashi asked, "Will you try to kill youself?"

"No, there is no reason for me to do that now."

Kakashi let go of Gai's other wrist and got off him, grateful to be able to move again. Gai sat up slowly, slightly dizzy from losing more than a little blood to the cut across his chest. He still looked morose.

_I'm going to regret this later,_ Kakashi thought as he spoke next.

"As your rival, I have a challenge for you."

"What is it? Shuriken at dawn? Hand-to-hand combat?"

"Outlive me."

Gai looked at Kakashi with just a hint of confusion.

"Call it a standing challenge," Kakashi continued, getting to his feet, "You have to try to live longer than I do. Whoever is alive at the end wins."

He offered Gai a hand.

"Do you accept?"

Gai grasped the proffered hand.

"Of course I do. I cannot turn down a challenge from my eternal rival."

Gai clambered shakily to his feet with Kakashi's assistance.

"I'll walk you home." Kakashi said.

"Worried I'll lose our new challenge on purpose?"

"Worried you won't find the place. You're wearing a lot of blood."

As the two jounin walked away from the training field, Gai asked, "Why did you stop me earlier, when I tried to kill myself? Why did you stay?"

The answer came after a long pause.

"I've lost enough friends."

**Fin**

(smiles sheepishly) Hope I didn't butcher the characters too badly. Any comment is appreciated, even if it's just "Cool" or "This blows". I like knowing people have read my stuff.


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